


don't do anything i would do (and definitely don't do anything i wouldn't do)

by andibeth82



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Aunt May needs a friend who understands superheroes, Laura Barton has ace parenting skills, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Really this whole story is just about Laura giving parenting advice to people, Tony Stark Has Issues, but mostly he just needs some guidance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9301661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: “You’re a good parent,” Clint tells her one day while they’re budgeting their monthly bills. “Agreatparent.”The thing is, Laura agrees. But the last person she expects to be giving parenting advice to is Tony Stark.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about Tony Stark basically being a dad to "I wanna be an Avenger" Peter Parker in the new Spider-Man film (see trailer), and I have a lot of feelings about Laura Barton's interactions with the Avengers and the fact that she would want to teach Tony a thing or two about how to be a parent. That's it, that's the story.

“You’re a good parent,” Clint tells her one day while they’re budgeting their monthly bills. “A _great_ parent.”

“Uh huh.” Laura glances up to make sure that Nathaniel hasn’t eaten, maimed, knocked over or disassembled anything in the last sixty seconds since she’s taken her eyes off the kitchen floor.

“I mean it, Laur. You’re like, the world’s gift to this family.”

“You’re welcome,” Laura responds, plugging some numbers into the calculator on her iPhone. Just because Clint’s been to jail and back in one piece, it doesn’t mean he gets special treatment, even with baiting. “Does that mean you’re cooking dinner tonight?”

“Whaddya want?”

Laura considers his question, because maybe it’s the whole "having to basically lie low until they were sure Ross wasn’t looking for them" thing, but ever since Clint’s gotten out of jail, he’s been positively giddy when it comes chores that aren’t home improvement. Laura’s taking advantage of it, because she’s pretty sure it won’t last.

“I dunno. Tacos?”

Cilnt’s voice escalates to a whine. “ _Tacos_?”

“Tacos,” Laura repeats, picking Nathaniel up off the floor and prying a plastic block out of his mouth, before walking over to mark the calendar in the pantry. “The ones my dad makes. You cook the meat and then take some tortillas -- we have tortillas, I just went to the store -- then put the meat and some cheese on the tortilla, fold it over, and fry it. Fifteen minutes, tops, not counting the meat.” She glares at him with a no-nonsense look. “I want tacos, Clint.”

“Fine,” Clint sighs out. “I’ll make you tacos. Happy now?”

Laura grins. “Absolutely.”

 

***

 

Clint takes off four days later to visit Natasha, who has sent a semi-confusing message that indicates she’s currently bouncing around the Pacific Northwest and is bored, _aka, Clint, please come keep me company while I figure things out_. Laura sends him off with a kiss and an extra suitcase full of homemade food, just in case Natasha decides to stay away a little longer.

Two days after that, she receives a phone call from New York, via a number she doesn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Uh. This is Laura, right? Clint’s wife?”

She has no idea why Tony Stark is calling her, unless it’s because he wants to apologize for putting her husband in superhero jail. In which case, well -- Laura’s never really been a fan of guilting people into apologies, but she figures this situation gives her a pass to be a bitch.

“Tony, why are you calling me?”

“I, uh. I kind of have a problem.”

Laura can’t possibly fathom what kind of problem Tony could have that would warrant calling _her_ , of all people. She knew about him being on the outs with Cap, and Natasha was MIA until further notice (to everyone but Clint and Laura), and Wanda was still in Wakanda, and who knew where Thor was; not that an Asgardian would be much help in this case, anyway.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” Tony sounds unsure and very un-Tony-like, as if he’s trying to figure out how to explain himself. Laura immediately senses red flags. “It’s...not really a problem I can get help with. You’re, like, the only person in anyone’s life that’s normal -- well, as normal as you can be being married to Clint Barton --”

“Spit it out.”

“Anyway, I was hoping maybe I could ask you for help with something?”

“Oh.” Laura puzzles over his words. “Well, now we’re getting somewhere. What can I help you with, Tony?”

“Well, see...there’s this kid.”

Laura thinks hard while Lila delightedly screams in the background; she certainly would have remembered if the self-described genius billionaire playboy had any offspring. “Tony, I really don’t want to know about your exploits and illegitimate children.”

“What?” Tony’s voice rises, and he sounds horrified. “Jesus, no, god -- an ex tried that line on me once, trust me, I’m over that joke. It’s not about my kid. I don’t have kids. It’s about Spider-Man.”

“That’s a new one,” Laura remarks, because she hadn’t expected _that_ response. Natasha, when she had called Laura to tell her what happened, had mentioned something about how a kid in a spider suit had fought at the airport. In all honesty, however, Laura had stopped paying attention once Natasha mentioned Clint was in jail.

“He’s...well, he wants to be a superhero.”

 _Oh._  And Laura suddenly gets it, because she doesn’t know about many things that her husband does and doesn’t do out of the house, but she _does_ know about talking to wide-eyed innocent kids about what they want to be when they grow up.

She knows how to be a parent.

“Do you want to come over?”

“Huh?” Tony’s breathing quickens, and it’s clear he hasn’t expected her response. “Seriously?”

“Why not? You already dropped in once unexpectedly.” When Tony doesn’t answer right away, Laura realizes maybe he’s not used to her sarcasm. “I’m serious. Clint’s away for a few days, and I could use the company. Right now, my only companions in this house are two loud children and a baby who screams every hour, and sometimes, a stray worm that ends up in my salad.”

Tony clears his throat nervously. “Sure you don’t mind?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have asked,” Laura responds. “That’s the first thing you should know about me. We have an extra room, and if it’s too boring here, I can always find some work for you around the house.”

 

***

 

When Tony Stark shows up at the farm, it’s not in the way Laura expects. For one thing, she expected that if he ever did show up at her house again, it would be the same way he arrived: looking slightly worse for the wear, not looking cleaned up and freshly shaved. For another thing, she expected if she ever _was_ in front of Tony after what had happened to Clint, she would slap his face and scream, and then slam the door. Then she would take a deep breath, put on classical music via the bluetooth speakers Clint had just set up, and take a long bubble bath with a glass of Chardonnay.

But when Laura greets Tony on the porch, he’s wearing a Black Sabbath shirt and a pair of orange-tinted aviators, his upper lip curled into half a smirk. One hand is holding a small travel suitcase, and the other is holding a brown plastic bag emblazoned with the symbol from the nearest liquor store.

“The finest Cabernet,” Tony says in greeting, holding out the bag. “I figured I owed you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Laura reminds him as he walks inside.

“No, no.” Tony waves his hand around. “That’s for barging in on you the first time around. And, uh, because your husband was in jail. Y’know, that whole thing.”

“Oh.” Laura nods. “Well, in that case, I accept your gift. Do you want to see your room?”

Laura leads Tony up the stairs. Lila’s standing at the top of the landing, waiting for Cooper to get out of the bathroom, and starts to run toward her mom. She stops short in her tracks when she sees Tony.

“Who are you?”

“That’s daddy’s friend, Iron Man.” Laura reaches for Lila’s hand and nods towards him. “Remember when he came to our house last year, with daddy’s other friends?”

Lila looks up at Tony and grins. “Hi, Iron Man!” She reaches for his hand and yanks it, hard, causing Tony to wince.

“Holy crap,” Tony says after Laura shows him the guest bedroom. “She’s got the Barton grip. I’m almost impressed.”

“Yes,” Laura says with a long sigh. “Unfortunately for us, she does.”

 

***

 

By the time Tony’s settled in enough for Laura to feel comfortable, she’s put together a lunch of potato salad and turkey sandwiches on rye; her kids are settled with their own sandwiches in the living room and are hungrily devouring them while Laura sits with Tony in the kitchen.

“I’m just not great at this parenting thing,” Tony starts after Laura puts a sandwich down in front of him. “My own dad was barely around, and my whole childhood was a joke. I spent more time in front of machines than I did in front of people. I don’t have experience with good role models.”

Laura sits down across from him and takes a bite of her own sandwich. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

Tony cringes as he picks up his fork. “I locked Wanda up while I was trying to protect her.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Now this Spider-Man kid wants me to be, like, a mentor or something. And I mean...I’ve never had to deal with _kids_ before!”

“Never?” Laura asks curiously. Tony shrugs.

“There was this one kid a few years ago, in Tennessee. Harley. He helped me out with some stuff and I grew kinda fond of him. But I wasn’t trying to teach him how to be a superhero.”

Laura takes another full bite of her sandwich, chewing slowly. “Alright,” she says after she swallows. “The first thing to know about parenting is that not everything can be fixed with money or bribes.”

“I don’t fix everything with money! Or bribes.”

“Really,” Laura replies flatly. “You think I believe you? How much did you pay to upgrade that poor kid’s suit?”

Tony makes a face. “For your information, I was trying to protect him! You should’ve seen what he was swinging around in before -- it wasn’t even a suit. I know Barton is like, the most accident prone person on the team, but jeez, you think you’d understand _that_.”

“That’s not the point,” Laura says easily. “And by the way, yes, my husband may be accident prone, but at least he didn’t get himself beat up so much it almost cost him his life.” She ignores the side-eye Tony gives her. “Kids are easily influenced. If you want to be a good role model and a good parent, they need to know you care about them with or without strings attached.”

“And there’s a way to do that without offering them, you know, things to keep them busy?” Tony asks cryptically.

“Yes. It’s called making sure they know that even when they mess up, or do something that angers you, you’re never going to stop supporting them. For example, yesterday, Cooper let a snake loose in the house.” Laura pauses. “I yelled at him and sent him to his room. But afterwards, I made sure he talked to me and I told him that I was just angry because he had made a bad decision. It didn’t mean I loved him any less.”

“Yeah, but, I just want this kid to not die out there,” Tony points out. “I don’t love him or anything. There’s a difference.”

“He may not be your own child,” Laura agrees. “But you wanted advice on how to be a parent, right? Being a parent is not exclusive to being attached to a child by blood. It’s about how you treat them.”

“Boy, you’re really hardcore with this stuff,” Tony observes. “No wonder Clint kept you hidden for so long. Also, can I have more potato salad?”

 

***

 

“Second rule of parenting,” Laura says as she hands him a wrench and points to a loose portion of pipes under the sink. “Be willing to learn from your mistakes.”

Tony pokes his head out from underneath the sink, arching an eyebrow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you're going to do some things wrong, and there's no way around it,” Laura explains, bouncing Nathaniel in her arms. “You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to tell this kid things that will make him angry. When that happens, you can’t beat yourself up.”

“That sounds ominous.” Tony goes back to work under the sink, fiddling with another part of the loose pipe.

“I’m only being truthful.” Laura kisses the baby on the head. “You’re not trying to be a parent to a normal kid, Tony. You’re trying to be a parent to someone that wants to be bigger than he can be, who wants to save the world and run off without a safety net. I know a little bit about what that’s like.” She waits until he’s finished tinkering with the pipes, and Nathaniel pulls on the loose button of her flannel shirt.

“So basically, I have to get used to feeling like I’m always going to be a failure?”

Laura can’t help but smile, because there’s something in his voice that reminds her of Clint -- an undercurrent of something self-deprecating, a disbelief that he’s as important to the world as people have led him to believe he is.

“You’re a lot of things, Tony. Some of them I won’t say here, because I have a baby in my arms. But you’re not a failure.”

 

***

 

“So, you’ll never guess who’s at the house,” Laura says when she calls Clint later that night, after putting the kids to bed. She’s sitting downstairs in the living room, to ensure that she can talk without interruption and without the danger of being overheard.

“Santa?”

“Clint.” Laura rolls her eyes at the wall. “Come on.”

“I thought it was funny,” he mumbles, his words barely discernible, and from the way he’s shoving food into his mouth and slurping she figures Natasha must have gotten them Chinese for dinner. She’s only a little bit jealous, both about the Chinese food and the fact that Clint gets to spend time off the grid with Natasha.

“It’s Tony.”

“ _What_?” Clint yelps into the phone. “For fuck’s sake, why the hell is he there?”

“Believe it or not, he’s looking for help. He wants advice on parenting for that Spider-Man kid. I think he’s trying to mentor him.”

“Huh.” There's a whisper of murmurings in the background, and then Clint comes back on the line. “Natasha says if he stays for more than three days, you should start charging for therapy.”

“Maybe I will,” Laura considers, chewing on her pen, looking forlornly at the couch that’s stained with baby food. “I could use a new sofa.”

 

***

 

“Dare I ask what the third rule of parenting is?” Tony asks the next morning, after Laura has sent Cooper and Lila off to school. Nathaniel is crawling around on the front lawn, and Laura is sipping some of Tony’s wine while he examines some of the loose porch rails. She thinks for a moment, staring out at the pastel-colored sky.

“Only lie when it’s absolutely necessary.”

“What do you mean?” Tony asks. “Like, it’s okay to lie _sometimes_?”

“Yes. Sometimes, you need to lie to protect the people you care about.” Laura shrugs and watches her son examine a large rock. “Clint lied to our children for years when they were little. When he came home hurt and they asked about it, or when they were worried, he told them stories about how he was doing housework. We both knew that if we told them about the dangers he faced in his job, even if they couldn’t understand it, we would be dealing with a lot more than one nightmare a week.”

“He doesn’t lie now.”

“Obviously not. We still keep them away from the news, just in case, but they know what he does and who he deals with. They’re also older, in a sense.” Laura plays with the hem of her skirt, the thin fabric sifting through her fingers. “You can choose what kids do and don’t get to know about the danger they face. Would you send this kid into the world and tell him that the person fighting him is so strong, he could kill him?”

“Of course not!” Tony says, bristling at her words. “Besides, that would probably make him _more_ likely to run off. But you’re acting like lying to him won’t.”

“No, it probably will,” Laura says, putting her wine glass on the ground. “But you’ll feel better when it comes to protecting him.”

“I don’t seem to have a great track record with that,” Tony offers as he tugs at a rusty nail, pulling it out with calloused fingers. “Protecting people, I mean. My own friends couldn’t even trust me to take care of them.”

"Because of The Accords? That wasn't exactly your fault, Tony."

"I guess," he says, not looking up. Laura walks out onto the lawn and picks up Nathaniel, who is pulling up grass stalks with dirty hands and laughing at himself.

“It’s not easy,” she agrees, sitting down on the porch steps and letting Nathaniel wipe his hands all over her jeans in glee. “We had to talk Cooper out of the superhero game at least twice so far, and I think it’s only going to get worse. I think at some point, Clint’s just not going to be able to protect him anymore. He hasn’t really come to terms with that.”

Tony fiddles with the bent nail, twirling it between his fingers, and then drops it on the porch. “I’m not used to this,” he says finally, and Laura swallows down a laugh.

“What? Asking for advice, or being a parent?”

“Both.” Tony smiles wryly. “I used to have a team. People that I could, you know, work with and mentor. In a way. We weren’t perfect. But I did learn from them, even if they never thought I did. And now, I don’t even have that anymore. I’m just kind of lost.”

Laura shifts Nathaniel on her lap. “What’s this kid’s name?”

“Uh, Peter.” Tony picks up his wine glass and takes a sip. “Peter Parker.”

“Why did Peter come to you in the first place, Tony?”

“Because I recruited him to come to Germany,” Tony replies, as if it’s the most obvious answer in the world. "What other reason would there be?"

“Maybe the fact that he looks up to you,” Laura adds, her voice gentle. “And because he thinks he can learn from you.”

Tony puts the glass down and rubs a hand over his goatee. “I don’t know how to deal with kids,” he says. “I think of them as projects, because I don’t know any better, and I don’t want to treat him a project. But in a way, it’s...it’s kind of nice to have something to work with again, you know? Something to build. Something to create. Like, there’s a purpose again, after all of this stuff we went through. I just don't want to screw it up.”

Laura watches him closely as he talks, taking in his expressions. “Are you ready for the fourth rule of parenting, then?”

Tony nods, pointing a finger gun at the bird feeder. “Shoot.”

“The fourth rule of parenting is that there are no rules.”

Tony does a double take at her words, whipping his head around so quickly that Nathaniel bursts into giggles.

“What?”

“There are no rules,” Laura repeats. “Everything I told you is simply what’s worked for me. If you asked any other parent in this town what to do, their answers would be different. Maybe some of them would be the same. But there’s no manual that teaches you how to be a parent, Tony. You can get help and advice, but every child is different, and you have to learn things on your own.”

Tony looks at Laura uncertainly. “So how do I know if I’m doing it right?”

Laura puts a hand on his knee. “You don’t. But, like I said, you learn. I did. Clint did. My mom did. And so did a bunch of my friends. And if you’re willing to be helpful around here, I could be persuaded to keep giving you advice, free of charge. Consider it my way of forgiving you for putting Clint in jail.”

Tony laughs under his breath. “You know what? You really are a good parent.”

Laura can’t help but smile, thinking of Clint’s words. “A _great_ parent?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, meeting her eyes and smiling back. “Definitely. A _great_ parent.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming and the first thing I thought about was how Aunt May would get along with Laura Barton, the only other real parental figure in the MCU. So this turned into a thing. (Spoilers for the end of the film, if you haven't seen it yet.)

On the way to New York, Laura Barton drinks a large coffee and makes a list in her head of all the things she’s experienced that would have made anyone else run for the hills. They include:

 

\- Married a SHIELD agent

\- Gave eccentric billionaire Tony Stark parenting advice

\- Forced Captain America to do household chores like a five-year-old

\- Yelled at the director of a multi-million dollar funded secret agency for stepping into my home with muddy shoes

\- Befriended a reformed assassin from Russia who has a history of murdering children

 

So when she gets out of the cab and steps onto a busy block in Queens, she doesn’t feel entirely out of her element knowing that part of her visit is going to entail talking to someone she’s never met about how to handle teenage superheroes and secret identities.

“I don’t do house calls,” Laura had protested indignantly earlier that week. It was the truth -- she didn’t do house calls -- but more than that, it was a Wednesday and there was a lot happening that she needed to focus on. Cookies needed baking, and PTA agendas needed to be written, and carpools needed to be scheduled. She didn’t do house calls, but she also didn’t have the time to consider them in the first place.

“I’m not asking you to do a house call,” Clint had said, even though Laura knew he was. “I’m asking you to help a friend. You like helping my friends, remember?”

“You don’t even know her! Or her kid!”

“I know.” At this point, there was the slight sound of scraping, and Laura could practically see her husband’s feet shuffling against the floor in a show of nervous hopefulness. “But, you know, he’s technically an Avenger. That makes him one of us, yeah?”

Laura had taken a few measured breaths, just like her psychologist had taught her to do in situations like these, and closed her eyes.

“When you get home from being a war criminal, I’m going to kill you.”

“Ha.” Clint had all but smirked over the phone. “I’m working on it. Nat says hi, by the way. So does that mean you’ll go?”

Which is how, not forty-eight hours later, Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel had been dropped off at a neighbor’s house and Laura had found herself on a flight to Laguardia and then in a yellow cab that broke all the speed limits along Grand Central Parkway.

She crosses a busy intersection and stops in front of a building after consulting an address on her iPhone, then dutifully presses one of the buttons on the intercom.

“Hello?”

Laura clears her voice against the scratchy tone bleeding through the mouthpiece.

“Hi, um, it’s Laura -- Laura Barton? I’m --”

“Come up,” interrupts the voice, which is cut off by a loud buzzing sound. Laura grabs the door handle and enters the building, looking around the old lobby before getting on what looks like an even older elevator.

 _Just your typical day,_  she thinks as she gets off the elevator and walks down the hallway. _Coffee and conference calls about book clubs, and getting ripped from my regular life to talk to people who are parents of superheroes_. She shakes back her hair and knocks loudly on the thin door.

Truthfully, Laura’s not sure what she had expected to find when she came here at Clint’s request. The only people she really knew in the superhero world who were on a scale close to normal were Natasha and Maria and Nick, and a few people at SHIELD that she had gotten semi-close with over the years -- having a husband who routinely went off the rails and got himself captured or injured tended to mean you made strong connections with people outside your immediate circle. But May Parker, with her long brown hair and simple clothes and glasses and slight frown lines that Laura recognizes as the sign of too much stress, reminds her of, well... _her._

“May Parker? You’re Peter’s aunt?”

“You must be Laura,” May smiles as she opens the door to let Laura in, but it’s a strained grin as opposed to a genuine one. “Tony Stark called me. He said you were coming.”

“I’m glad word travels down the Avengers phone line,” Laura mutters, and May narrows her eyes.

“I’m sorry -- did you say Avengers?”

Laura curses silently, reminding herself to be more mindful of what May did and didn’t know. Just because she knew her son’s secret identity didn’t mean she knew _everything._

“Yes. Just -- never mind.” Laura glances around the apartment. It’s certainly small, but it’s decently-sized for a two-family home. Laura finds herself thinking that as much as she loves her large house in the middle of the country with its creaking walls and open spaces, if it was just her and Clint and no kids, she might actually be open to living someplace more urban.

“I don’t even know why you’re here,” May says, sitting down at the table. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you. Tony just said that you had experience with this...this superhero thing?”

Laura nods, joining May at the table. “I do. Not with kids, exactly...well, I guess a little bit,” she adds, off May’s skeptical look. “I have three children. My husband is an Avenger. He’s been involved in dangerous things almost the entire time I’ve known him, and our kids…” Laura trails off. “I know what it feels like to be upset when you find out something that they’ve been keeping from you.”

“I’m not upset!” May’s face is taut, the lines around her mouth becoming more prominent. “I’m mad! I’m angry! All this time, all this sneaking out and lying behind my back and putting on that...that _suit_! It doesn’t even have padding in it!”

Laura presses her lips together, trying to figure out what to say, because she figures telling May something like _my husband doesn’t even have a real suit_ would just make her angrier.

“And I can’t tell anyone!” May continues, her voice rising as she gets up. “I can’t even call my friends and say that Peter is Spider-Man and talk about how angry I am! It’s like I’m living this secret life and it’s making me crazy!”

Laura remains silent while she watches May pace around the kitchen, trying to control her temper.

“I really appreciate you letting me into your home,” she says finally, leaning back in the chair. “And I know you have a lot of things you want to talk about, and that you’re angry. You have every right to be angry. But --”

“But?” May asks, crossing her arms.

“But, this is my first time in New York in a really long time, and I could definitely use a drink after that flight.”

May stares at Laura, then laughs under her breath, her body becoming less rigid in a show of surrender.

“You know what? Me too.”

 

***

 

May takes Laura to a Thai restaurant down the block, what she promises is one of the best places in Queens, no questions asked. Laura doesn’t ask questions; she’s more than happy to follow May’s lead and she can’t remember the last time she had Thai food -- usually, take out included pizza or Italian or Chinese or whatever she could coerce her children into eating in that particular moment that wasn’t ice cream.

“What makes Peter good?”

May puts her glass down after taking a long sip of wine, her brows knitting together. “What?”

“What makes Peter good?” Laura repeats calmly. “The things that you’d say if you had to talk about him to another parent.”

“Oh.” May traces her index finger around the rim of the glass. “Well, he’s always helping people -- I guess that’s why he keeps running around doing dangerous things without my permission, right?” She smiles wryly. “He’s a good kid, he really is. He’s so smart, and he tries to do everything that he can to make things better for people. He’s kind and he stands up for his friends, and…”

“And those are all things that make a good superhero,” Laura offers, pausing to take a sip of beer. “At least, they are in my book.”

May shakes her head, letting out a long sigh. “You said your husband was an Avenger -- which one is he? I’ve seen a few on the news.”

“Hawkeye.” Laura tries and and fails to keep the boasting pride out of her voice. “The one with the bow and arrow.”

“Oh.” May looks confused. “I don’t know about that one. I just know the green guy, and the one with the hammer, and that Captain America. And I think he’s even some sort of fugitive now.”

“It’s alright.” Laura shrugs. “He kind of flies under the radar. He likes it that way, sometimes.”

May inclines her head. “You also said you had kids. But they’re not superheroes or anything?”

Laura stifles a laugh. “Not unless I’m missing something -- in which case, I’d be a really bad mom, right? No, Cooper is in middle school. He loves sports more than anything else, and Clint -- my husband -- he has him already learning how to shoot a pretend bow. Lila is in elementary school. She’s obsessed with reading. Nathaniel was born about a year ago, right after that battle in Sokovia.”

“I remember Sokovia,” May says, nodding slowly, and Laura can tell from the look in her eye that she’s thinking about what would happen if Peter was involved in something that looked that dangerous. Laura can’t blame her; she had only seen the news reports but from the way Clint had described everything to her, she’d been more than a little terrified for her husband -- an adult who was well equipped to handle situations like that.

“I think...if I’ve learned anything about being a parent, and a wife to a superhero, it’s that you can’t protect them,” Laura says, thinking of Clint’s numerous injuries. “If someone is so willing to go out of their way to help people because they care so much, no matter what age they are, sometimes, you just have to let them do that.”

“I assume you’re talking about your husband,” May says, signaling for another round of drinks. “But Peter can’t even drive. He’s just a _kid_. He’s a kid out there doing things like fighting bad guys and taking on people twice his size, and I’m practically his mom. You’re a wife, and it’s...it’s different.”

“I’m also a mom,” Laura reminds her as she downs the rest of her drink. “Believe me, my husband may be older, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with the injuries or surprises or the late nights when he comes home after weeks of no communication. I get angry with him for keeping things from me the same way I get angry at my son for taking self-defense classes and lying behind my back.”

May takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. “You know, I had my suspicions,” she says finally, her voice dropping as she returns her glasses to her face. “I always did. I’d never tell him, because it seemed so ludicrous. But now that I know...I never imagined he’d keep something like this from me. I’d see Spider-Man doing things on the news, and Peter would be sitting right there, eating dinner, telling me about his Stark internship --” May’s face darkens again, and Laura can almost see the self-hatred manifesting in her brain. “I’m so stupid, Laura, I should’ve _known_.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Laura asks calmly, knowing her own truth -- it wouldn’t have made a difference if she had known what Clint really did for a living, and it wouldn’t have made a difference if she had known the extent of Natasha’s past. She would have married Clint anyway, and she would have made Natasha her best friend regardless. If she knew Nick was the person who lied and put his best interests in front of people he should care about like family, she would have still let him into her life and made him a godfather to her children, and if she knew Tony spent his former life building weapons that killed innocent people, she still would have taken pity on him and offered him genuine parenting advice.

“You mean, would I have stopped him?” May asks with a laugh. “No, probably not. I would have told him not to do things, and I know how well he would’ve taken _that._  I guess I’m just angry at myself as much as I’m angry at him.”

“You’ll find there’s a lot of that in this business,” Laura responds. “Being a mother to a superhero isn’t easy. But believe it or not, you’re in good company. Try being the wife of the only Avenger who has a family and kids to answer for. It adds a whole new level of stress that no one else seems to understand.”

May rolls her eyes. “So now there’s two of us, I guess. What are you saying, that we should start a support group? I don’t think I can afford to travel halfway across the country every week for therapy.”

Laura curbs a smile. “Well, there’s always Skype. And I already have a therapist, so don’t force me into being in a support group, because then that makes me sound like I don’t have my shit together at all. At least call me a drinking buddy.”

May smiles, raising her glass. Laura raises her glass back and sees a hint of relief in her eyes, the kind of relief that she knows is inherent of a mother finally feeling in control of a worry no one else might understand.

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me for fic and more on [tumblr](http://isjustprogress.tumblr.com).


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